Alta Journal ’s California Bestsellers List (January 30, 2025)

With reporting from the California Independent Booksellers Alliance, Alta Journal brings you a list of the bestselling titles at independent bookstores across Northern and Southern California for the week ending January 26, 2025.

This week’s list includes two popular titles. First is Onyx Storm, the latest installment in Rebecca Yarros’s Empyrean series. After 18 months at Basgiath War College, a brutal military academy, Violet Sorrengail heads into unfamiliar lands to gather allies for the battle ahead—one that will determine the fate of those she loves. Also featured is Margaret Atwood’s classic The Handmaid’s Tale. In this dystopian novel, a totalitarian regime enforces rigid social roles, stripping women of their autonomy. Offred, a Handmaid, is forced to bear children for one of the regime’s commanders, her identity and past erased as she struggles to hold on to her memories of her previous life.

For a full list of titles and categories, visit the California Independent Booksellers Alliance.•

Southern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Onyx Storm (deluxe limited edition), Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $32.99
2. Onyx Storm (standard edition), Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $29.99
3. Intermezzo, Sally Rooney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $29
4. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
5. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins, Hay House, $29.99
2. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32
4. Aflame: Learning from Silence, Pico Iyer, Riverhead Books, $30. Read the Alta review.
5. Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, Oliver Burkeman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
3. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $20.99
4. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18
5. The Handmaid’s Tale (series tie-in), Margaret Atwood, Anchor, $18

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
3. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
4. Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner, Vintage, $17
5. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $18

Northern California

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Onyx Storm (deluxe limited edition), Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $32.99
2. James, Percival Everett, Doubleday, $28. Read an excerpt in Alta.
3. Onyx Storm (standard edition), Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $29.99
4. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, Grove Press, $20
5. The God of the Woods, Liz Moore, Riverhead Books, $30

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer and John Burgoyne (illustrator), Scribner, $20
2. The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About, Mel Robbins, Hay House, $29.99
3. Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, Oliver Burkeman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27
4. Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company, $32
5. The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin, Penguin Press, $32

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Orbital, Samantha Harvey, Grove Press, $17
2. Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar, Vintage, $18. Watch the author speak at a California Book Club event.
3. Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, $20.99
4. The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon, Vintage, $18
5. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver, Harper Perennial, $21.99

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, Crown, $12
2. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, Knopf, $35
3. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, Michael Finkel, Vintage, $18
4. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Editions, $20
5. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe, Vintage, $20

Source: California Independent Booksellers Alliance

Elizabeth Casillas

Elizabeth Casillas is an assistant editor at Alta Journal. A graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, she has previously written for the Poly Post and Enspire Magazine.